Statewide Homeless Council (SHC)

Statewide Homeless Council (SHC)

November 12, 2013

Augusta, ME

Council Members Present: Wes Phinney,Cullen Ryan, Donna Kelley, Guy Cousins, Shawn Yardley,Elizabeth Szatkowski, Sister Lucille MacDonald,Jon Bradley

Council Members Not Present: Dan Harfoush, John Gallagher

Guests: Cindy Namer, MaineHousing; Christine Hufnagel, Community Concepts; Betty Palmer, Mid Maine Homeless Shelter; Kerry Polyot-Stefani, Stepping Stones; David Projensky, DHHS/OAAS; Don Harden, Catholic Charities of Maine/PATH; Thomas Ptacek, Homeless Voices for Justice; Elizabeth King, Home Together Emmaus, Bath; Bonnie Gerard, Bath Initiative on Homelessness; Holly Stover, DHHS; Josh O’Brien, City of Portland.

Presenters: Joe Finn, Executive Director, Massachusetts Shelter and Housing Alliance

Minutes Recorded by: Scott Tibbitts, MaineHousing.

Minutes from previous meeting: Approved as submitted.

Agenda Review/Additions:No changes.

Announcements:

-Pat LaMarche and Diane Nilan, “Frost Bites Tour”will be discussing the impact of homelessness on youth this Saturday at Husson College from 2 to 4.

Goal 1:

- Shelter Funding Ad Hoc Committee will meet again in early December, time and location TBA.

- The Youth Homelessness Group is meeting later today to talk about recent TLP RFPs. Twice now agencies have responded to RFPs that were later withdrawn without awarding funds. There are currently two RHYA type TLP’s in Maine (Shaw House and New Beginnings). The last RFP was limited to ages 15 to 17 – which is not the age group typically served by TLPs. With Halcyon House closing, and these RFPs being withdrawn, the message seems to be that there is no need for homeless youth services, but this is not the case. The number of youth being served at Halcyon House was actually increasing – they closed for lack of funding, not lack of clients. Donna said they are still receiving referral calls every week.

-At the last LAASH meeting, Bob Rowe of New Beginnings asked that a letter be sent requesting that the funds no longer going to Halcyon House remain in Region 2 for youth.

- It was suggested that several letters should be sent, to several departments, so that the issue can be addressed across a number of programs simultaneously, and not get stuck in a silo.

- Cullen made aMOTION, Seconded by Donna that SHC send letters to all related departments at DHHS requesting that funding for Youth Shelters and Services remain in Region 2. PASSED. Jon B. will draft the letter.

- It is important to recognize that we have only a limited number of Youth Shelters and Programs in Maine – and be aware of how that in and of itself distorts the true picture.

- Schools also track ‘homeless’ students, but the definitions they use are different that HUD or RHYA, and their data systems do not mesh with HMIS.

- PIT collection methods do not capture accurate Homeless Youth numbers because homeless youth do not follow the same patterns as homeless adults. The HUD/CoC definition is very restrictive and not really applicable to the situations that homeless youth are most likely to be in.

- If we focus a dedicated youth count effort on just one or two rural areas, maybe the Somerset/Kennebec, or Oxford/Franklin areas, with peer to peer volunteers and a longer time span, we might get a better sense of the size of the homeless youth population.

- We should look at how other states do this and develop a better methodology.

-The KBH Youth Outreach Program is still operating, so there is still a big need there.

-The Jobs for Maine Graduates Program, and the Unity Foundation are both interested in the Homeless Youth issue and could help in the effort to improve our counting.

- Maine has seen a great improvement in our Veteran’s counts by working with the Maine Military Community Network groups for the PIT – we need a similar youth focused effort.

- We need this information for Maine, so we have a better sense of what we need to do here, so we should not be limited by HUD or RHYA definitions, or by what ‘funding’ allows.

-The “Youth” focus has always been on ‘unaccompanied’ youth, but teens and youth who are in shelters with their families still have specific issues and needs that are not being addressed. They need to be part of this discussion as well.

Goal Three:

Updates from Guy Cousins:

-Discharge Planning: The draft language for discharge planning of Hospital Patients will be reviewed at the next Hospital Association meeting, and hopefully approved.

-The Stage B Homes of the Behavioral Health Homeless Initiative have a new deadline of April 1st. The RFI’s have been collected and the RFP is being developed. These will be clients with severe and persistent mental illness and co-occurring disorders.The next RFI will be for Crisis Services.

-DHHS is moving to a “One Critical Incident Report” model rather than each department filing a separate report on the same incident.

- Cullen took the opportunity to commend Guy and DHHS for their willingness to look at how Shelter Plus Care was being prioritized and be responsive to the needs and concerns of providers.

- Cullen also stressed the importance of continuing to provide services until the client is stable, and asked if the 6 month limit on PATH might be looked at. Guy said that DHHS is committed to developing a continuum of flexible services, and to collecting and analyzing the data to help inform how the program evolves. Donna added thatthe biggest issues is not the 6 month limit, but the availability the right types of resources, particularly housing.Housing is such a limited resource, even when new units or new vouchers become available, they fill up immediately. Jon said the 6 months would be fine as a “guideline”, but there should be the option to extend that if the situation justifies it, particularly with Chronically Homeless clients.But, keeping too many clients ‘longer term’ would mean workers not being able to connect with new clients, and backing up the line.

-Don said he was glad that the DHHS Office on Aging was now working more closely with SAMHS because that is increasingly the population that is appearing in shelters – especially in Portland, but it will soon be statewide. Jon said Florence House has a number of women over 65 – some in their 70’s – who really need more of an Assisted Living environment, not the traditional Supportive Housing arrangement that has been developed.

Medicaid 1115 Waiver:

We were again joined on the phone by Joe Finn of the Massachusetts Shelter and Housing Alliance. Joe attended the recent Affordable Housing Conference here in Maine and liked the information on how Maine is implementing Housing First initiatives. Tenant based supportive services are vitally important to helping clients establish stability in housing - but in his experience, what really made the difference is not the clinical services, but the more flexible ones:home visits, transportation, things not regularly funded. They needed to develop a model that would reimburse for these types of tenant based services and they were able to do this in conjunction with the 1115 waiver. They shifted from a ‘15 minute’ billing model to a ‘Day Rate’ process.The two key components are 1) the state needs to get the 1115 Waiver and 2) the state Medicaid Plan has to adopt a CSP model. Establishing “medical necessity” is key. They did see an increase in costs in the first year, but they have seen significant decreases after that.

Discussion followed: How can Maine implement this? We would need to have a Policy group look at changes to the current regs. SHC could draft a White Paper to present the ideas. Joe’s group has a grant to help other areas with these initiatives. They can take a look at theregs in Maine and provide recommendations. SHC should create an Ad Hoc committee to work on this. Someone should contact Stefanie Nadeau, Ricker Hamilton, and Guy about participating.

Lewiston Auburn Forum:

-Don has spoken with LAASH – they agreed to the date and time, just need a location so we can send a Save the Date notice soon. Possibly the KBH Clubhouse?DHHS office? Some suggested it be at a shelter. Should be a “neutral” space where everyone will feel comfortable – and maybe arrange for shelter tours after like was done in Aroostook.

-For the Aroostook Forum MaineHousing did a lot of promotional work ahead of time and sent notice to every town and every program in all of Region 3. In L/A there are already good networks and connections between providers, and LAASH can help spread the word, they should take this opportunity to reach out to folks who do not regularly attend.

-They have a great local Plan, and the way the community pulled together after the fires was great, but how to sustain that sort of energy, and actually implement the plan are big challenges.

- We want it to be a dialogue. We need to know what they see as working or not working there, and we can offer help or suggestions.

-LAASH has a Plan, and a very active core group of members, but they seem to have trouble coordinating among all the various providers in the area. There is a lack of a well defined ‘system’. They do not seem to have a lot of support from the community as a whole. They have also always pointed to a lack of meaningful data as huge barrier to accessing resources.

-This may not be a full list – but it’s a place to start the conversation and see what else comes up as we begin to address some of these issues during the forum.

-We should also look at their local plan and see where and how it ties in with the State Plan- where can we support each other’s efforts? Focus on solutions. How do we overcome inertia?

-We should promote the PIT and other things they can do to show the need. Find ways to get people to work together, not just focus on their particular program, or population.

-At the Aroostook Forum there was a need to provide a lot of basic information about the groups, the agencies, the efforts that were happening – but LAASH doesn’t need that – they have members who attend Region 2 HC, and MCOC – what they seem to need is a way to energize, mobilize, and coordinate what they are doing in new ways.

Goal Four:

Maine’s Long Term Stayer’s Initiative: Cullen reviewed the PowerPoint that he had presented at the Affordable Housing Conference, which focused on data from the Oxford Street Shelter and applied some of the ideas and approaches proposed by the 100,000 Homes Campaign. Of all the clients who moved through the Oxford Street Shelter last year, about 55% stayed less than 14 days. About 80% stayed less than 60 days. Only about 5% stayed for 180 days or longer. That’s about 116 people out of a couple thousand – BUT, if those people are taking up 116 beds every night, out of 154 at the Shelter itself, that means all those hundreds of other folks who are “passing through” really only have access to about 38 beds on any given night. This is why there are now 3 overflow locations in Portland.

Cullen then proposed that SHC ask the Regional HCs to make it a focus of their meetings and their efforts to connect with the local providers in their areas including S+C, HAs, and any other agencies, to help coordinate services and housing – including prioritizing housing for LTS’s. Discussion followed about not wanting to make it harder for providers to fill beds/units by imposing this as a restriction. Donna said her PATH workers are plenty busy working with people who cannot even get into a shelter because they are full, and yet when she does have openings at her programs, she has to seek out referrals because the local shelters are not sending her anyone.

Cullen said this is why it is so important to work as a community – where everyone at the table knows who the clients are and can coordinate the appropriate resourced to get the person housed WITH services to best meet their needs.

Tom suggested that RHC’s may be too far up the chain to really be able to focus on any given individual – they should focus on establishing the model, the process, and making sure the connections are in place, and the let the more local groups address it at the community level. The PATH providers in each area can be the glue that connects the individual to the large group and to the specific resources they need.

Cullen agreed that PATH could be the thing to pull all this together. Can we get PATH workers to attend RHC meetings, present these ideas, and begin coordinating the available local resources around the clients they are working with? It would only work if the HA’s and others with access to housing units are also at the RHC’s and willing to work together – we need to come at it from both end – both the clients and the housing/resources.

Other Business:

None

Next Meeting:

December 10, 2013

9:30 to 2:00

240 Bates Street in Lewiston